I was seventeen when my life split cleanly in two.
One moment, I was a scared high school junior standing in my parents’ kitchen, hands shaking as I told them I was pregnant. The next, I was standing on the front porch with a single suitcase, the door locked behind me, my mother’s last words ringing in my ears: “We can’t be part of this.”
I slept on a friend’s couch for three nights. I barely ate. I barely spoke. Shame felt heavier than my own body.
